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His knees give out as he drops before me, his hands hesitantly reaching out to touch my shoulders.
"Noelle," he rasps, his voice thick and heavy, like a nail pinned to a coffin. "I…" he starts, his eyes moistened with tears. His mouth is parted, his face shadowed by fear and terror.
Something is wrong. Something is very, very wrong. He doesn't look like a man who's made the right choice. He looks like a man terrified he made the wrong one.
"Raf, what…"
I don't get to ask the question as a piercing noise dissipates the fog encroaching on my mind.
We both simultaneously turn towards Lucero. Her mouth is agape, her body spasming as one after another, shrilling screams are wrenched from her throat.
Her whole body is seizing, her eyes rolling to the back of her head as she trembles wildly against her bounds.
What…
It goes on for a few minutes.
Harsh screams of pain before deafening silence.
Just as it began, it ended.
Raf moves as if on an automated pilot, going to her side and placing two fingers on the pulse point at her neck.
"Dead," he declares after a moment, his eyes closing as he releases a deep, disappointed breath.
Dead.
Dead.
Dead.
The word echoes in my head, barely registering.
I'm one step away from losing it—one step away from closing my mind to reality and everything around me. But that one word keeps me from slipping.
On the precipice, it functions as a beckon to lure me back.
She's dead. That means…
He chose me.
Michele planned this from the beginning, didn't he? I would be laughing at his audacity if it wasn't my life on the line. If Raf wasn't the smart man I know him to be.
Even so, this was all a gamble. A simple throw of the coin.
"She's dead," he exhales in relief, tears rolling down his cheeks.
Quietly, he comes to my side, tearing at the rope that holds me chained to the chair and freeing my aching limbs.
All throughout he's quiet.
And that's when more panic sets in.
Is that…what he intended? Did he mean to kill her? Did he…
I can't help the way my mind goes into overdrive, but I need him to spell it out for me. It's not enough that she's dead and I'm not. I need him to tell me he choseme.
FOUR
